Of all the phrases I’ve heard since I began covering the healthcare industry,the most common one is how much better healthcare would be if it simply adopted some of the practices of the [insert almost any other industry here]. That’s a perspective shared by Robert Szczerba. He has formed a company called X Tech Ventures that’s designed to solve some of the most challenging problems in healthcare using a simulation platform that can be adapted for several different needs.
In a phone interview with MedCity News, Szczerba explained that the “X” can be interpreted as the unknown problem to solve in a mathematical formula, as well as cutting edge ideas. He started the company three months ago after working for Lockheed Martin for 18 years where he most recently served as the corporate director for healthcare and life sciences. He was driven by the inefficiencies he saw in the healthcare system as he sought treatment for a child diagnosed with autism. “I was an engineer so I wanted to figure it out,” he said.
As the healthcare industry shifts from fee for service to outcomes-based care, technology that can be tailored to hospital needs to reduce medical errors and improve outcomes and train people faster would be of great interest to hospitals.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Szczerba said it sees opportunities to help hospitals improve their design, workflows in the operation room and ICU, and patient experience, among other areas. For example central line associated bloodstream infections are one of the most common hospital-acquired infections. They can be deadly, lengthen hospitalization and drive up healthcare costs. The company envisions its platform being used to help hospitals troubleshoot these kinds of problematic areas.
Szczerba points to aviation, specifically the pilot’s checklist, and the banking industry’s approach to giving customers secure access to their accounts as practices healthcare systems should adopt more widely. “It’s so frustrating that you can go into you bank account online and see your transactions for the past three hours but it’s so difficult to get immediate access to a child’s medical records.” Although the pilot checklist is a system embraced by some hospitals for operating rooms, Szczerba thinks wider adoption would be beneficial and could reduce medical errors.
A 2010 paper Szczerba co-authored captured some of the ideas X Tech embraces.
“Just as the use of flight simulators and system integration concepts revolutionized the aircraft industry decades earlier, similar concepts can be applied to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the health care industry today…
Using simulated virtual environments, we can bring the techniques we take for granted in other industries —- notably aviation —- to not only design new clinical systems but to improve existing systems.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
X Tech Ventures in Binghamton, New York is currently more of a consultancy than the software-as-a-service provider it seeks to be. As far as its hospital design services are concerned he said, “We are actually finding more interest on the international side, especially in the Middle East because there’s so much construction.” He sees the hospital construction boom as a byproduct of the Arab Spring, with a recognition that access to healthcare needs to expanded to other parts of the population aside from the wealthy.
Szczerba said another twist is its target customer has turned out to be the healthcare vendors that sell to hospitals rather than dealing directly with hospitals.
Gaming has had a huge influence on the development of simulation and role-playing software programs being developed for healthcare. Its applications vary from patient education to medical training for physicians to reducing readmissions. Other companies have developed role playing models such as helping primary care physicians spot behavioral health problems. and helping medical students and nursing students build confidence to do physical exams free of medical jargon.
